The Main Reason Why the Next IPhone SE Will Be Updated
I’m a big fan of the iPhone SE. In a market where you can easily spend over $1,000 on an iPhone, there is an option that includes many (if not all) of the features most people want in an Apple phone at a reasonable price. Sure, Apple makes some sacrifices that some of us can’t live with – dated design, less impressive cameras, lower quality displays – but what comes with the SE is usually enough for the average buyer.
iPhone SE 4 will be an update
In fact, it looks like the upcoming iPhone SE will be more than enough: According to Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman , Apple plans to follow the iPhone 16 lineup with a new iPhone SE that will essentially upgrade the iPhone 14: Where the current iPhone SE looks like the iPhone 8. with large bezels, a home button and a 750p LCD screen, the new SE will have a high-resolution edge-to-edge OLED display with Face ID. Although Gurman doesn’t mention cameras, the iPhone 14 has two high-quality rear cameras, including one ultra-wide-angle lens. If Apple redesigns this iPhone for the SE, it would make sense for these cameras to do the same. (Perhaps this means we’ll finally get night mode on the iPhone SE.)
But the big story here isn’t the new iPhone SE cameras; this is artificial intelligence, specifically Apple Intelligence . Gurman says that “you can also bet” that Apple’s upcoming suite of AI features will be supported on the new iPhone SE, and that’s wild: Currently, Apple Intelligence is only available on the iPhone 15 Pro and 15 Pro Max with the A17 Pro chip. The iPhone 15 and 15 Plus, which came out the same year, do not support it because Apple used the iPhone 14 Pro chip for those phones. You can buy a brand new iPhone 15 today, and by next year Apple’s “budget” iPhone will have artificial intelligence features that your phone won’t be able to run, from AI Siri updates to email drafting.
Cheap but powerful
However, this isn’t all that shocking when you look at SE’s history. The one thing Apple doesn’t typically do with the SE is performance: sure, the latest SE redesigned the same form factor and cameras as the smartphone it released five years earlier, but it included the company’s most advanced iPhone chip. , A15 Bionic. If you’re not interested in other premium features, you can get an iPhone with the same power and performance for literally half the price of Apple’s flagship.
This is likely what we’ll see with the iPhone SE next year: Apple will cut corners on an iPhone design that will be several years old at that point, but will likely use the A17 Bionic chip currently found in the iPhone 15 Pro. (They could even use the same chip they use for the iPhone 16 Pro, but if they continue the trend of using the previous year’s chip for the base model iPhone, it would make more sense for them to do the same for the budget iPhone as well.) This would also be easy marketing for Apple: want an iPhone that can run Apple Intelligence? All of our new iPhones, including our cheapest option, can.
This would be a shame for those on the wrong side of this divide, especially the iPhone 15. But generative AI is still fairly new, and it’s not obvious that any of these features will be particularly revolutionary. While it’s never fun to stay away from what’s new, Apple Intelligence may not be a reason to upgrade your incompatible iPhone, especially while Apple is still supporting your iPhone with non-AI features.
Apple will release the iPhone 16 lineup this fall and will wait until next year for the iPhone SE update, likely sometime in the spring, so it will be a while before we see what the company decides to do.